India's internet users to cross 500 million by 2020, says Google

Owing to affordable smartphones and data tariffs, Google predicts that India's internet population will grow by 65 percent to reach 500 million by 2020.

We have now reached a stage where smartphones are super affordable. Well, with the advent of affordable smartphones which indirectly leads to growing usage of internet across the country, India’s online population is said to reach 500 million by 2020, Google’s Asia Pacific Language Head, Richa Singh Chitranshi said. While addressing IT students at Rajiv Gandhi Proayogiki Vishwavidyalaya (RGPV), she said that India’s internet will reach 500 million by 2020. The event was jointly organized by RGPV and an online portal MPPOST.

“India’s online population will reach 500 million by 2020 with majority of them being local language users,” Chitranshi said while addressing IT students at Rajiv Gandhi Proayogiki (Technology) Vishwavidyalaya (RGPV). Speaking about the present and the future of the internet Chitranshi said, it was mainly due to availability of affordable smartphones and data packs that have enabled millions in Indians to go online. She also informed that today over 65 percent of India surf the internet through their phones with majority of the new users accessing it for the first time through phones.

“Interestingly, not all of them are English speaking users,” Richa said. She said out of the 350 million, 150 million internet users are only comfortable with local language and those users will form the majority of the online population in India. Stating that the reach of internet is growing rapidly in the country, she said that net users will go up from the current 43 percent to 62 percent by 2020. ALSO READ: India’s internet users to reach 730 million by 2020

Chitranshi further pointed out that Google have seen 10 fold growths in local language queries over the past 1.5 years. Hindi content consumption is growing five times the rate at which English content is consumed. She also said that content, speed and products are the priority for the company. The Google India keyboard on Android has been downloaded 10 million times. There are 22 official languages in India and Google supports 11 of them including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and seven others. This would help writers in a big way, she added.

The initiatives taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the field of Digital India were also highlighted by MPPOST Founder Editor Sarman Nagele and Madhya Pradesh Rojgar aur Nirman Editor Pushpendra Pal Singh during the event.